The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open

Online Courses MOOCs

The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open

Online Courses MOOCs

ETR522-Fall 2017

Mona Alenezi

1
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

Introduction

Over the last few years, millions of people have started enrolling in a new type of course

called a massive open online course or MOOC. MOOCs are a new platform of online courses

that are often offered free of charge and cover many different topics. The term MOOCs was first

introduced in 2008 by Siemens and Downes when they were developing their first online course

in Canada. The term MOOCs had first been defined in previous research. It referred to an online

course that allowed an unlimited number of learners to enroll at no cost through providers such

as Coursera, edX or various universities. In the last few years MOOCs have become a major

source of personal development among adults. In addition to providers such as Coursera and

edX, Rwaq offers MOOCs in the Arabic language. Also, elite universities such as Harvard

University, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have started offering

MOOCs.

MOOCs have become very popular because of three features. First of all, they allow an

unlimited number of people to enroll in one course. A second feature involves cost. Many

MOOCs are free of charge and learners do not need to pay anything in order to enroll. Learners

only need a fast internet connection and a device in order to benefit from courses offered by

some of the worlds best higher education institutions. A third feature of MOOCs is that they are

usually flexible in terms of access, where learners can study and do tasks from a time and place

of their choosing. However, despite these benefits, there is a low completion rate of those who

are taking MOOCs.

2
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

In general, little research has been conducted about MOOCs and their use, and the few

studies exploring them have applied different theories such as Adult Learning Theory and

Connectivism (Jordan, 2015; Liu, Kang, Cao and Lim 2013; Fini 2009). Researchers have

conducted several studies to investigate the completion rate of MOOCs. Jordan (2013) conducted

a quantitative study to investigate factors that influence the completion rate and the number of

students who enroll in MOOCs. The results of the study indicated that the length of MOOCs

significantly predicted the completion rate. According to the results of the study, the percentage

of students who completed longer courses is lower than the percentage of those who completed

short courses. The study also focused on whether university rank affected enrollment numbers

and completion rates. The study showed that there was no significant relationship between

university rank and completion rate or enrollment numbers.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this study is to investigate if gender, level of education predicts students

completion of MOOCs.

Research Questions

- Do the following factors (gender, level of education,) predict students completion of

MOOCs?
Hypothesis:

- H0 = Gender and level of education do not significantly predict the students completion

of MOOCs.

- H1= Gender and level of education significantly predict the students completion of

MOOCs.

3
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

Significance of the study

The result of this study will provide valuable information about the factors that might

affect the learners completion of MOOCs. This study will help stakeholders to better understand

the nature of MOOCs, the nature of learners, and what factors that limit MOOCs use.

Specifically, the result of this study will provide information to course designers about factors

they need to pay more attention to when designing MOOCs. In addition, this study will help

designers to analyze what features they need to add or remove from MOOCs. Researchers will

also get benefits from their contributions to this study.

Participants

A permission was obtained from Dr. Todd to use his data that he previously collected

through survey between 2008-2012. N= 16829 were surveyed about the use of massive open

online courses (MOOCs). The data was collected from 2008 to 2014 and the participants were

worldwide. The survey was distributed using different methods. First, the researcher looked at

popular MOOCs providers by visiting their websites, such as Courseera, edX and Udacity. The

researcher identified the instructors who were teaching MOOCs and sent them email requests to

distribute the survey to their students. Another method was by sharing the survey link on social

media and discussion boards among potential students. To increase the response rate, participants

were asked at the end of the survey to share the survey link with their friends and colleagues who

they believe participated in MOOCs.

Data analysis

N= 16829 responses were received, and based on the table, the data missing from this

survey is 65.6%. This high percentage of missing data might be due to the large number of

participants. 33.6% of the participants were from the United States, while 55.5% were from other

4
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

countries. The mean age of the participants was 25.94. 34.3% of participants were male, and

30.4% were female. The independent variables in the research question are Gender and level of

education, the dependent variable is completion of MOOCs. As the predicted variable (MOOC

completion) is a binary variable that has two values (yes and no), logistic regression was

conducted to see if the independents variable significantly predicts the completion of MOOCs.

5
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

Result

6
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

Table1.

Research Questions: Do the following factors (gender, level of education,) predict students

completion of MOOCs?.

The researcher applied A binary logistic regression examine if gender and level of

education significantly predict the completion of MOOCs.

Table 3. shows that the model with the predictors (Gender and level of education) fits

significantly better, p<.01. To see of these factors significantly predict the completion of

MOOCs, the researcher looked at Wald test (see Table3). The result of the test indicated that

only gender is significantly predict the completion of MOOCs, (b = -.255, p < 0.05, p=.000001),

While level of education is not significantly predicting the MOOCs completion, (b = -.018, p >

0.05, p=.982). The confidence interval for the odds ratio does not include 1.0 for gender which

confirm that there a possibility of effect for this factor. Since there as least one predictor that

significantly predict the completion of MOOCs, the researcher assed the odds ratio. The result

indicated that compared to males, the odds that a female complete MOOCs is .775.

7
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

Table 2.

Table 3.

Discussion

Belanger and Thornton (2013) in their study found that most of the students who completed

MOOCs were students who held a bachelors degree or higher degree. The result of this study is

contradictory with the previous finding. Regarding the gender possibility of predicting the

completion of MOOCs, the result of this study indicated that gender is significantly predict the

completion of MOOCs which is consistent with what Latanich, Nonis, and Hudson (2001)

reported in their study. The result of their study indicated that gender is found to be a factor that

significantly influences students ability to complete distance courses.

8
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

Conclusion

It is very obvious that there is a mixed result about the gender and level of education

possibility of predicting the completion of MOOCs. Its highly recommended that this study

could be duplicated in different setting. In addition to that, further study may examine others

factors that may predict the completion of MOOCS, such as age, number of MOOCs taken

before, the length of MOOCs. Since most of the studies that examine the factors that predict the

MOOCs completions are quantitative study, conducting a qualitative research would be more

valuable because it helps to understands in depth why students do not complete MOOCs.

9
The relationship Between Gender, level of education and the Completion of Massive Open
Online Courses MOOCs

References

Belanger, Y., & Thornton, J. (2013). Bioelectricity: A quantitative approach Duke Universitys

first MOOC. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/10161/6216

Fini, A. (2009). The technological dimension of a massive open online course: The case of the

CCK08 course tools. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed

Learning, 10(5

Jordan, K. (2013). MOOC completion rates: The data [Web log post]. Retrieved from

http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html

Jordan, K. (2013). MOOC completion rates: The data [Web log post]. Retrieved from

http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html

Latanich, G., Nonis, S. A., & Hudson, G. I. (2001). A profile of todays distance learners: An

investigation of demographic and individual difference variables of distance and non-

distance learners. Journal of Marketing for Higher Education, 11(3), 116.

10